Sharon Stone & Blue 45's Redemption (Part I)
Stuck inside with little to do and nowhere to go, Mike hatches a plan promising to bring us boobs on the big screen. It could change our lives forever -- for better or for worse.
This is Chapter Seven of The Stories We Tell, a nostalgic lookback on friendship, growing up, and the hopes we have of becoming heroes. It’s The Wonder Years meets The Sandlot with sprinklings of Friday Night Lights.
This is Part I, where it all starts.
In Part II, we devise the plan.
And in Part III you can see how it all turns out.
New stories will be published weekly. For a list of all chapters, please visit the Chapter List here: Chapter List - The Stories We Tell.
Mike pounded down the stairs into his basement and dropped a steaming hot mess of grease, cheese, salsa, plus a few chips onto a card table whose legs wobbled and green felt had been torn since the late ‘70’s. A smattering of half-full Faygo Root Beers rested atop it.
B reached for the plate and grabbed a hunk of nachos. He stuffed them in his mouth while his eyes never left the Fredericks of Hollywood Christmas Edition, he’d been thumbing for the last thirty minutes. Ryan’s Eagles led my Giants 28-14 in Super Tecmo Bowl. He hit pause, and we walked over to the table.
Outside, wind crashed into the house and rattled shutters. The rain stampeding into the Earth had canceled our baseball games, and while nothing tops the thrill of the lead-up to the last day of school, by now it was mid-June and we were stuck inside and bored, with nowhere to go and nothing to do.
Looking back, it’s funny how the type of day you long for as an adult is the exact type of day you felt cursed by as a kid.
Mike paced in place behind the table like he might wet himself. A poster of the Bash Brothers atop an Oakland police cruiser hung over his left shoulder. His breaths came in short puffs.
“Dude! What the h**l?” B said through a mouthful of nachos and eyes busy reading his magazine.
“Like a fart in a skillet. What’s going on with you?” Ryan asked.
“Oh man. Oh guys. You gotta hear this. You gotta hear this. This is it. I promise.” Mike clawed at a chunk of cheese and chip parts and flung it into his mouth, never stopping to chew before he added, “Fellas, you need to listen to this plan.”
Ryan and I dug into the nachos. B turned the Frederick’s of Hollywood sideways to get a better look at something. Mike had a history of grand plans with wrong outcomes, and none of us cared for his next silly idea.
“Listen to me, d****t!” Mike shouted.
“Pshhhh,” B waved him off.
“Yeah, Mike. Remember the Tabasco sauce?” Mike rolled his eyes as Ryan spoke. “We spent that whole Saturday mopping the restaurant so they wouldn’t tell our moms.”
“That one wasn’t my fault.”
“And…” I started.
“Don’t even,” Mike shot back. “That one is on you.”
“Remember the water balloons?” I continued. “And what happened to little…”
“No, no, no, no. I am not getting blamed for that one.”
“Not cool, man, not cool.”
Mike’s nostrils flared and his lips squeezed shut. His one eye always twitches when he gets angry, and right now it blinked like a bird’s a** runs in berry season. “Just listen for two seconds!”
Ryan turned to me. “Ready?” He asked. I nodded, and we started back toward the Nintendo.
“You guys wanna see some boobs?”
Ryan and I stopped and turned. B closed the Fredericks, brushed crumbs from the felt table, then set the magazine down with great care, and looked up. Where Mike had none of our attention before, by saying the “b” word he certainly had all of it now.
He reached into his back pocket and unrolled a picture he’d torn from a magazine. When spread it across the table, a red hot movie poster looked up at us.
Mike leaned closer and spoke.
“What do you know about Sliver?”
** Stay tuned for Part II releasing on Friday morning and Part III coming Saturday. **
1993 Pop Culture Corner
If you’re curious what else was happening in early June 1993, here’s something new I’m adding for 2024 - a highlight of something pop culture from around the time each story is set.
For movie lovers, dinosaurs took over the Earth again on June 11th. This little worldwide phenomenon is crucial to what you’ll read in Parts II and III of this story.
Oops for parts 2 and p 3
Can't wait Reports two and three